Germany’s political landscape is “frighteningly similar” to the 1930s, one of the country’s biggest pollsters has warned, as voters abandon mainstream parties and flock to fringe and radical movements.
In an analysis produced on Wednesday, the Forsa Institute said while modern German constitutional rules guarantee some degree of stability in the make-up of parliament, they mask a growing state of political division in the country. Without a 5 per cent threshold for parties entering the Bundestag, elections would produce a parliament that was just as politically paralysed as it was on the eve of the Nazi seizure of power.
“With all due caution given to making comparisons with Weimar, the extent of the fragmentation of the current German party landscape is frighteningly similar to the fragmentation in the Reichstag elections at the end of the 1930s,” Forsa wrote.